Now Is the Hour (20 page)

Then the shock of my life — well, that is, up until then — Flaco reached down and grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled his T-shirt over his head. Armpit hair. My God, I'd never seen Flaco without a shirt. My breath gone away again. Flaco's shoulders, his collarbone, his nipples. Then both of his shoes were off, he'd kicked them off, and his hands were around his denims, and sure enough in
nothing flat there he was, all of Flaco naked right there, the black hair of his crotch, the muscles that curve down from his waist a dovetail to his cock. His cock resting on his balls, darker brown and voluptuous. I don't know what else to call it, how he was. Thick darker brown than the rest of his skin, his cock, his balls, voluptuous.

Then Acho too. Naked, stark naked. All that dark brown muscle, one long uninterrupted ripple of muscle, the hair in the middle of his chest, the little trail of hair starting at his waist, then thick down around his cock and balls. His cock and balls full, beautiful, round, like swear words in your mouth that mean “joy” when you speak in a Romance language.

Beautiful, brown, round asses. Flaco's ass something so smooth you wanted to slap hard or bite into, but instead you lost your breath, you lost your balance. And Acho's ass, smooth and round and brown too, but inside the crack a dark mass of black hair.

All in an instant.

Naked romping men, whole entire bodies, all of the body, every part of the body. Foot pads to foreskin to earlobes, totally naked, gut-wrenching, breathtaking, heartbreaking, naked.

I was lost.

My clothes were not like Flaco's and Acho's. My clothes did not come off so easy. All they had to do was undo their buttons, zip down their zippers, unlace their shoelaces, pull off their socks. But not me. Getting my clothes off me in front of Flaco and Acho was a lot differnt.

I got by, though, with a little help from my friends.

Flaco started with my hat, off went my hat, then Acho unbuttoned my top button of my shirt, then on down. Off with my shirt. Flaco was kneeling down and unlacing my boots. The bounce of his balls between his legs, I couldn't look. There went my boots. My smelly socks. Down there on the ground my incredibly white feet.
Puta madre,
Acho said when he saw my white feet. Then my belt, then the five, count 'em one two three four five Levi's buttons. Then Acho divested me of my Levi's and underwear, and there was air around all around me where I loved to have air, my pants a bundle around my feet. I pulled one foot out of the bundle, then the other.

I was naked.

In the sun naked.

With all my zits naked.

My hands were fists covering my crotch.

Acho grabbed one hand, Flaco grabbed the other. They pulled my fists away.

Both Flaco and Acho put their hands over their ears. Their eyes like in horror movies when the woman sees the monster. They screamed loud screams, and they stared at my cock.

Qué horror! Chingada tu puta madre!

My head rolled down, my eyes traveled down my chest, over my belly, down to myself down there.

What I was doing was what I always do when I get half-naked, naked.

I was poking straight out in front of me.

Acho pointed at my cock and said something in Spanish that later that night in the haystacks they told me and I memorized:
El trae la verga bien parada!

Which I think sounded like: He tries to have a very good parade.

But it was not a parade I was trying to have.

It was a hard-on.

And I was not trying.

Then it was something magical. The swimming hole was magical, and the three of us were one flying whooping hollering screaming shits and giggles, one long, smooth, uninterrupted naked thrust through the sky of the dry, hot, sunny Idaho afternoon. Suspended in the air, arms, legs, cocks, a balls-out splash, the whoosh down deep into cool, muddy, green water.

No swimming suit, water all around me touched me deep the way water goes wherever it can go. My legs, my ass, my cock, my balls, waterfall rushing water against me, better even than air. Floating low, my body a slide along dark rocks and mud, tangles of moss, gliding like a seal, some kind of sea animal, audacious pigs, Esther Williams, I was sprouting gills, breathing water. In the dark turbulence, my hands found one human leg and then another, and I grabbed the legs and pulled and from somewhere up above in the breathing air world is a holler, a high-pitched yell that turned into bubbles.

Flaco's face right up next to mine through the dark, muddy, green, Flaco all-his-teeth smile. His Jesus eyes turned devil, Flaco grabbed for me, but I was too fast. I was out of the water in one long lunge, the deep breath of air glory in my chest. In no time at all, Flaco's arms
around my neck. Then Acho got my legs, and the two of them lifted. I was lifted up high, straight-armed, to the Lord, a lodgepole pine, a pyre, a wet, long body in the hot, dry air. Just like that, a splash into green again and dark. Flashes of black hair, brown skin, and differnt parts of bodies, arms, legs, shoulders, the mole on the back of Acho's neck, Flaco's brown foot poking out of the green water, the white water of the waterfall. A finger poked me in the ass, right
in
the sphincter, the same place as the yellow tulip. In an instant, how curiously full it felt in my heart that place of me touched again. This time the touch let the lead out of my ass. I let out a scream. I thought it was laughter that lifted me up, and I walked as if I were walking on water.

Flaco's broad hand, his perfect fingernails, curled around a hank of crabgrass next to my foot. I ran in the sun, naked, ran wet in the sun, Flaco behind me, Acho behind him. In my ears all I could hear was the water running out of them, my breath, Flaco's breath, Acho's. Past the cement walls from either side that came together at the head gate, my feet were splashes of wet on the dry old board, two-by-twelve, bolted down. My balls bouncing, my cock. I'd never seen my cock when I was running, how it lay on my balls when my legs were together. How it swung loose with the ball sack, my legs stretched out as I jumped to the outcropping of slick, dark, lava rock. I landed, my palms sea anemones, suction cups onto the black, slick rocks. My feet found their way up the side of the mossy, wet, dark lava.

Once up top, the flat, dusty earth was hot on the bottoms of my feet. I looked down. I was breathing hard, water running down my body. My feet were across the border, my feet were on the rez. Planted deep in all that red, as crooked as the wind, was the lone cedar tree. In the hot sun, the cedar boughs smelled of one more sweaty body. The wind through the cedar, the secret song of the wind in the cedar that moment, was something not outside me but down deep up behind and under, a fist balled up inside me opening to a hand waving in the wind.

Flaco charges from the left, Acho from the right. They jumped to nail me, but I was one, two, three grand strides and another whoop, high, high in the air, forever it seemed in the air I was falling, falling. Then the rush of water about my ears, the deep green water. In no time at all, it was Flaco, then Acho, full-body splashes. Underwater sea animals, slick, swimming along the bottom.

We could not stop. We swam, we climbed the bank, we ran in the
still blazing heat, goose flesh our bodies, our feet pounded, pounded, over the two-by-twelve, jumping to the lava rocks, handholds, footholds, sometimes the moss too slick for good purchase, clambering, breathing hard, laughing always, always laughing, up to the top again on the rez in the red world, and the sweat cedar, we jumped again and again, over and over and over. In the world, there was nothing else, only our bodies propelled through the air, under the sun, in the green water, into the white rapids, the plunge.

Everything differnt, differnt and bright.

Everything possible.

Low, gold sun, driving the load home, in first gear, down the arc of the bow of the reservation. Between the two gates, on the longest stretch of open, flat land between the field and the feedlot, Flaco is driving too fast. We always drive too fast when we can, especially between the two gates. And this late afternoon, my birthday, it is the last load. Saturday night and Sunday and no hay to haul ahead of us. I am sitting in the middle between Flaco and Acho. Flaco's hat is off, and the wind from the open window is blowing his wet hair. Acho isn't wearing his shirt, and the sun is gold on his skin. Flaco shifts from third gear to fourth gear, and when the gearshift goes into fourth, Flaco's hand comes down. I doubt if Flaco even knows he's touched me. The little square inch of skin on my right leg below the knee. Everything gets slow, and I feel the scared place inside me that I don't know is scared until it stops feeling scared, and when the scared feeling stops I get a big, full feeling in my chest, and I love God so much right then. Our smell, sweat and hay and dust and the smell of the cab, gasoline, oil, exhaust fumes, cigarettes, mossy canal water, roaring down the road in a beat-up old truck. Me in the middle, Flaco and Acho and I, skin to skin to skin, my skin almost as dark as their skin. Just the three of us, close, riding in the truck, the wind blowing through. The way we are smiling we all know. This is a moment in our lives. Flaco takes a drag on the cigarette. Acho closes his eyes, stretches his neck. My exhale settles my body deep into the seat as if the seat is the only thing that holds me up. Each of us knows, and we know that we know, and without a word we bless the moment.

And now, a year later, even more, that moment is still with me, riding on my breath, in the pulse of blood, the deepened lifeline in the
palm of my hand. What I have come to know as true. Moments of gesture. To know what it is to love.

Flaco slid down in the seat so his body stretched out to the end of his knees. He put his long fingers through his curly black hair.

Rigby John, Flaco said, why don't you come tonight to our house and visit us?

The big empty place just down from my throat, the sore place next to my heart. My arms got the helpless feeling in them. I thought I was going to cry. I quick made my hands into fists, put my fists up into my armpits.

These guys really liked me.

A deep breath, my mouth finally let the words out.

Sure, I said, I'll come up. After supper. But I have to change the water in the pasture first.

Birthdays on the farm were like any other day except for you got a birthday cake and a pair of new Levi's or underwear, and Mom and Dad and Sis sang “Happy Birthday” to you.

That's the way it was that night at supper. Mom had made my favorite cake, which was a spice carrot cake with caramel frosting. The cake was sitting on the blue dish on the kitchen counter, sixteen blue candles stuck in the frosting.

I was standing both feet mostly on a square blue tile. I was about to reach out and test the caramel frosting, when, behind me, Mom said, Go wash up good now. Dinner's ready.

Mom's hair was in pin curls and the hairnet over the pin curls.

Going somewhere tonight? I said. Or are those pin curls for me?

Mom's almond-shaped hazel eyes, in them a little touch of gold. Lately she'd stopped wearing housedresses and started wearing pants.

Just go wash up, she said. Make sure you get behind your ears.

The cake looks great, Mom, I said. Thanks for making my favorite.

Mom turned her back to me, grabbed the pot with the spuds, took the potato masher out of the drawer, and started mashing the spuds.

Use the towel hanging behind the door, she said. And clean the sink out when you're done.

Mom had fluffed her hair out and was wearing her new rummage-sale cotton print blouse when she sat down at the table. Dad
noticed her lipstick and her penciled-on eyebrows too. Supper was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and canned string beans. As ever, we started supper with the sign of the cross.

Bless us, O fucking Lord, and You know the fucking rest.

Same with the rest of supper. I've already told you about fucking supper.

Sis and I cleared the dishes, scraped the plates into the kitchen garbage bucket under the sink. Mom poured Dad another cup of tea. I carried the cake to the table, set the cake down on the oilcloth tablecloth. Sis brought over the dessert plates and dessert forks, set them down next to the cake. Dad reached into his Levi's shirt pocket, pulled out his matches, and flipped the pack of matches onto the table. Sis grabbed the matches before me. She struck a match, lit a candle on the end.

Mom said, Start in the middle so you don't burn yourself.

Sis brought the match to the candles in the middle. When the candles were all lit, I sat down in my chrome chair with the plastic yellow seat. Under the table, where nobody could see, I squeezed my hands tight around the seat of my chair. I was smiling too much. I know you could see my gums.

Sis started singing. It's important to get the first note to “Happy Birthday” right; otherwise the whole song is ruined. Sis started singing too high. Consequently, everybody was straining their gizzards.

That's when Mom stopped singing. She stopped singing and told us all to stop singing. She got up from her chair and walked into the front room. She folded open the piano and sat down on the round piano stool. The first note she hit was middle C. If you can find middle C, you can go anywhere from there.

Mom hit all the keys just right so everybody knew where to start singing so the song wasn't ruined. Dad and Sis sang along as Mom played the piano.

Happy birthday, dear Rigby Joh-on.

Sweet sixteen and never been kissed was what I was thinking. I was thinking Mom always looked so beautiful when she played the piano. I was thinking I was going to beat off in the pickup parked up in the pasture. I was thinking about the Viceroy on top of the refrigerator I was going to steal. I was thinking Sis should never wear her hair in a French twist. I was thinking about the best way to go about getting
two pieces of birthday cake for Flaco and Acho. I was thinking, Oh, you're supposed to make a wish. I was thinking I didn't know what to wish, so quick I wished that Flaco and Acho and I would be friends forever.